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Viktoriya Torchinsky-Field
Courtesy of Olya Vysotskaya
Center City Resident Returns to
Her Heritage to Help Ukrainians
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
V iktoriya Torchinsky-Field
grew up in Soviet-era Ukraine
— the Ukraine of Jewish quo-
tas at universities, the Ukraine where
Jews couldn’t practice in public, the
Ukraine where her father felt com-
pelled to hide their Jewish identity
from his daughter until she told him
about how she and her friends left a
Jewish girl out of an activity.

So in 1989, the same year the Berlin
Wall fell, she married a Ukrainian
10 guy who was on his way to the United
States and left the Soviet Union forever.

More than three decades later,
though, Torchinsky-Field is going
back, in spirit, to her native country.

As Russia attempts to reassert control
over its neighbor in a war, Torchinsky-
Field is doing her small part to help her
former neighbors.

Aft er Russia invaded Ukraine, the
Center City resident got together
with some local friends to start the
Philadelphia-Ukraine Rapid Response.

Th e organization works with nonprof-
its to raise money for Ukrainians who
MARCH 31, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
want to stay in their homes.

As Torchinsky-Field explained,
Ukraine is a nation of more than 44 mil-
lion people, and while 4 million are now
refugees, the rest remain in the coun-
try; while other organizations focus on
helping the displaced, the Philadelphia
resident fi gured she could do the most
good by helping those trying to stay.

“We narrowed the mission,” she said.

Torchinsky-Field understands well
how to execute a narrow mission.

During the Soviet Union’s glasnost, or
openness, and perestroika, or recon-
struction, period in the late 1980s, the
Ukrainian teen developed a dream: get
to the United States.

Under the communist regime, she
didn’t think she’d be able go to a pro-
fessional school. Torchinsky-Field was
on an associate’s track for a teacher’s
degree because she felt like she couldn’t
aim higher.

But as a single person, she said, she
would be denied a visa. Instead, she
married her fi rst husband and then
separated from him within six months
of getting to the United States. Both
sides understood the arrangement.

“For all intents and purposes, I did